August 13, 2018 AT 5:00 am

Free App is a ‘Time Lag Accumulator’ for Making ‘Tasty Soundscapes’ #MusicMonday

Developer Daniel Kuntz’s Cycle is a free app, for iPhone and iPad, designed for making ‘tasty soundscapes’, using a decades-old decaying looping technique.

The app is a modern implementation of American minimalist composer Terry Riley‘s ‘Time Lag Accumulator’.

Riley’s system used two tape recorders, with a tape looped between the two recorders. Sound recorded on the first recorder plays back on the second recorder, after a delay determined by the distance between the two. By varying the feedback signal, you can control how long sounds will repeat, and you can ‘accumulate’ layers of evolving sound. Riley use the system in his 1963 piece, Music For The Gift.

Cycle implements this same idea, as an iOS application.

“It’s a simple, but very powerful idea, allowing you to easily create fascinating and often unexpected sonic textures,” notes developer Kuntz. “The system naturally lends itself well to long and slowly evolving musical ideas.”

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